Recently, image diagnosis using medical images that represent the interiors of living subjects is becoming widely used. Various modalities, such as X ray imaging apparatuses that employ FPD's (flat panel X ray detectors), X ray CT apparatuses, US (Ultra Sound) diagnosis apparatuses, MRI apparatuses, and PET apparatuses are utilized to obtain the medical images.
In actual image diagnosis settings, it is often the case that diagnosis is performed by cooperation between physicians of various specialties who request image diagnosis (hereinafter, requesting physicians) and physicians whose specialty is observing medical images (hereinafter, radiologists). Specifically, radiation technicians perform imaging of patients to obtain medical images based on examination orders from requesting physicians. Then, radiologists observe the medical images, generate reports that summarize the image observation results, and provide the reports to the requesting physicians. The requesting physicians ultimately perform diagnoses by reading the opinions written in the generated reports, referring to the images included in the reports, and taking various other pieces of information, such as the results of patient interviews and the results of other tests, into consideration.
A medical report generation/referral apparatus that generates and enables referral to medical reports is known (Patent Document 1). In this apparatus, links that correlate the addresses and image editing parameters, such as window levels, window widths, and magnification rates, of medical images to be referred to with keyword text included in opinions are generated according to user input. This is to clarify the relationships between portions of the contents of the opinions and each of a plurality of images included in the reports. Further, when viewers click on the text while referring to the reports, the linked medical images are edited based on the image editing parameters and displayed.
Meanwhile, a medical image display apparatus that realizes image display according to the needs of image observers is known (Patent Document 2). In this apparatus, image observation modes (a single image observation mode and a comparative image observation mode, for example) that define a display position and an image layout (number of screen divisions, tile display/stacked display, whether scout images are displayed, whether lines that indicate slice positions are displayed) for each modality of images to be displayed are set in advance. During image observation, the images to be displayed are displayed based on the image observation mode selected by the image observer.
In addition, an apparatus that automatically generates display protocol sequences is known (Patent Document 3). This apparatus switches a plurality of display protocols, in which a plurality of image display conditions (such as layouts and order of display) and image processing conditions are defined, in a predetermined order based on at least one display protocol sequence, to cause a display means to display a plurality of images while switching the display conditions and image processing conditions therefor. This apparatus automatically generates display protocol sequences according to examinations, series, the types of images, the types of input modalities, the physician who is to observe the images or the group that the physician belongs to (radiologist, clinical physician, a referring physician, etc.), and the intended uses of the images (observation, referral, comparison, etc.).